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Feeling under the weather?
Nick Miller
The
Age
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
AUSTRALIANS are getting so anxious about climate change that
they are seeing their doctors for help.
In a speech tonight to mark World Health Day, Dr Grant Blashki
says climate change is already having direct and indirect effects
on Australia's health, and the problems are set to get worse.
His call for the medical profession to treat climate change as
a health issue and address it as such is being echoed today around
the country and the world, as the World Health Organisation chose
"protecting health from climate change" as its theme.
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Dr Blashki, a senior research fellow in the University of Melbourne's
Primary Care Research Unit, says general practitioners and other
health care professionals will need to develop strategies to help
patients deal with concerns.
He said patients who came to him with depression or anxiety were
increasingly citing climate change news as something they were
having trouble coping with. "These people tend to have a
low threshold to taking on worries. When they pick up the paper
and see a small part of Antarctica disintegrating, they take it
on board," he said. "They pick up on the negative things
going on in the world. It comes down to maintaining hope, to get
people motivated, not despairing. Action is a great stress reliever."
A report commissioned by the Climate Institute says that by 2020
Australians will be suffering increased rates of heat stress,
allergic diseases and depression because of climate change. The
report, endorsed by the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners,
also predicts food poisoning, respiratory disorders and mosquito-transmitted
diseases will be on the rise.
The WHO has estimated that 60,000 people die each year from climate
change-related natural disasters.
With CHRIS HAMMER
Full
article here.
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INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
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